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The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has issued guidelines for the implementation of Phase-II of the rooftop solar programme, which envisages a greater involvement of power distribution companies(discoms).
Under Phase-II, the government aims to set up 40 GW of rooftop solar projects by 2022.
Financial aid
In 2015, the Centre had approved Phase-I of the rooftop solar scheme for a capacity of 4,200 MW by 2019-20. Of this, 2,100 MW was to be through central financial assistance (CFA) and the balance without central aid.
Earlier this year, the second phase of the programme for achieving a cumulative capacity of 40 GW by 2022 was approved.
It has been decided to implement Phase-II by making the discoms and their local offices the nodal points.
“In order to address several major issues identified during the phase-I programme, and especially the fact that the consumer had to approach multiple agencies for getting a rooftop solar plant installed, it has been decided to implement the programme by making the discoms and their local offices as nodal points for implementation of the RTS programme,” said the guidelines document.
Two components
There are two main components in the programme. Up to 4,000 MW of grid-connected rooftop solar projects in the residential sector will be set up with CFA, for which discoms and their local offices will be the nodal points. A CFA of up to 40 per cent will be given for rooftop solar PV systems up to 3 kW capacity. For capacities above 3 kW and up to 10 kW, the CFA will be limited to 20 per cent, after the initial 3 kW.
The discoms will also get incentives, based on their achievements towards the initial 18,000 MW of grid-connected rooftop solar PV projects.
The Ministry will allocate capacity for the installation of rooftop solar systems in the residential sector by discoms in the ensuing year.
An amount of ₹66 crore (one per cent of the amount allocated for the CFA sector) has been allocated under the programme for capacity building/awareness activities. This fund will be retained by the MNRE for promoting capacity-building activities.
Discoms will have to submit the cumulative capacity of grid-connected rooftop solar PV projects (in MW) installed in their distribution area as on March 31, 2019. This will be taken as the installed base capacity for the first year of participation.
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